Last month, Miguel wrote a post about a woman who felt entitled to steal packages off people’s porches. He highlighted how she didn’t think like normal sociable humans do.
She thought the packages would be replaced by Amazon and other senders, so her gain wouldn’t be her neighbors’ loss. “That’s what eased my conscience taking someone’s property, because I’m not a bad person, it was just a bad choice,” she told me. “I was in a desperate state.”
Social Justice activists, even before the term Social Justice had been part of the common political lexicon, have been pushing the idea that people steal out of desperation for as long as I can remember.
What is amazing to see is how Prop 47 has lead to the creation of an open-air black market for stolen goods in California, and people are running into stores with calculators to make sure they steal less than $950 in merchandise, at the same time the Trump economy is boosting wages and dropped unemployment to record lows.
I think this is definitely that people who steal, by and large, are not the desperately poor, but people with a streak of sociopathy. They simply do not care that they hurt others to satisfy their material desires.
A porch pirate in Minnesota went one step further to prove this by showing that he enjoys causing pain and misery in the people he steals from.
From the New York Post:
Porch pirate leaves ‘thank you’ note from ‘new owner of your package’
A brazen porch pirate left a thank you note after stealing a Christmas gift in Minnesota — even signing it from “the new owner of your package,” according to a report.
“So just a quick little thank you for leaving me the opportunity of stealing your package,” read the note left on shocked victim Hilary Von Smith’s doorstep in St. Paul, according to CBS Minnesota.
“Very nice of you. Thank You,” read the note left where a package with a gift for Smith’s box should have been waiting.
That is taunting. This is someone making a mockery of the victim of their crime.
Sgt. Mike Ernster of St. Paul Police said the note was “unheard of” and “something we’ve never seen before.”
But they are going to see more of.
Here is the reason I wanted to post this:
Smith, however, hopes her thankful thief strikes again — and takes a decoy parcel that she has left out that contains “a little gift from my dog.
Miguel and I are of different minds when it comes to mob violence and street justice.
I believe deeply in the social contract. We all obey the law. We pay taxes to pay for basic services that improve our quality of life. Those basic services should be prioritized to protect the quality of life of the law-abiding taxpaying public.
When that contract is broken, we vote the people who broke it out of office.
Sometimes, that contract is really broken and the politicians who broke it make sure it is broken in such a way that keeps them in power.
This is where mob violence and street justice become a signal to the powerful, a reminder that we the people do not take matters into our own hands because we pay the police and courts to dispense justice on our behalf. When they fail to uphold their end of the bargain, the criminals that prey on the people become fair game and the proper course of corrective action is to crack down on the criminals and restore law and order.
It is an extreme signal but a signal none the less.
The woman whose package was stolen is dismayed by the fact that police have not done enough to stop this type of property crime. So she is booby-trapping criminals with dog turds.
How long until we see a dummy package booby-trapped with something made out of fireworks or black powder and a porch pirate loses a hand?
When that happens, I will feel worse for the booby-trapper for going to prison than I will for the hook-handed porch pirate, who by all evidence isn’t some poor person stealing to buy diapers but an anti-social piece of human garbage who steals for fun.
I know this seems like petty crime, but as internet shopping becomes more and more common, porch piracy is going to get worse. If law enforcement doesn’t crack down on it, things will get out of hand.
If I were a mayor of a town, this time of year, from Black Friday to Christmas I would pay all the overtime I can to have police patrol residential neighborhoods during business hours to deter package theft. And if a package thief is caught, not just should they be charged with theft, trespassing, tampering with the mail (if applicable), but every other fucking crime I could remotely make stick. Then I would make a big hullabaloo about it on in the local media to put the fear of God into potential porch pirates.
I would rather see some porch pirate shot for resisting arrest over a $5 Amazon Prime box than hear about some middle-class development where people are getting ripped off. The handful of Leftist protesters do not scare me.
This is about restoring order and stopping the anti-social from preying on decent society.
The psychotic entitled behavior starts at the top. This weekend in DC:
https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/17/pro-trump-women-verbally-harassed-navy-seal-assaulted-by-unhinged-dems-at-swanky-dc-hotel/
It is no longer a question of if, but when.
There are things that people do that we consider to be crime(it is) or begging.
These are jobs for these people. It is cold out today. <30F and the team of beggers that work the corner are there. I do mean team. There are 3 to 6 in the team, they work 2 hour shifts. Often they will have a "camp" just out of sight where they are hanging out in expensive sleeping bags during cold weather with a camp stove and hot coffee.
They are working a job. Walking back and forth, collecting money for their theater. It makes them enough to feed and cloth them. I'm pretty sure the camp during the warmer weather, but they aren't camping now.
These people that "do crime" have done an evaluation which is "What is the biggest return on investment". Being a porch pirate is low risk, high pay off. I know how much amazon has sent me this year. And it is not a small number.
Everything from a $300 splitting axe last year to junk christmas tree lights this year ($12 for 50 LED per string 50' string, 4 strings per box. Oh, missed that it takes 3 AA batteries to run them and they only last about 4 days on 3 batteries) The porch pirate that would have grabbed that axe would have been very happy.
And almost all of it has resale value.
An acquaintance of ours broke his leg in a big way. He's been food shopping via amazon. Somebody pirating from his porch is going home with good food.
People are getting irritated with pirates, I suspect we'll start to see "package vaults" showing up. Sort of like the mailboxes. Open the door, put the package in, can't get the package back out without a key. Heck I might do that just to keep USPS from leaving my packages in puddles.
And we are going to start to see people doing things like buying dye packs like the banks use for their decoy packages.
IMHO, a big part of the problem is the deciline of Judeo-Christian religiousity in our country. Twenty years ago, if you ask kids why they shouldn’t steal, some would say, “because it’s wrong,” and some would say, “because I might get caught.” The shift from the former to the latter has certainly gotten worse in the intervening time. Too many in our society have adopted the attitude that one can live an ethical life without Judeo-Christian religiousity. While that may well be true for that generation, it seem clear that subsequent generations’ behavior proves that ethical behavior persists no more than a couple of generations without the relious obervance backing it.
All of this is compounded by the shift from Christianity to leftism (or, if you prefer, sjw nonsense). The latter has no ethical standards–only means justified by ends. This shift has encouraged a segment of our population to regard themselves as societal victims, for whom most infractioins of social standards are excused.
YMMV
Ivan, it is more a decline of morals, in general. Whether it is Judeo-Christian morals or many other “good” moral sets.
I don’t steal because stealing is taking somebody else’s goods/money which is forcing them to work as slaves. A person deserves to earn and retain the fruits of their labor.
I spend a lot of time with my autistic son stressing the rule “Do the right thing”. And “You know what the right thing is.” My lady is a teacher, she has been forced over the last 30+ years of teaching to use bribery, cajoling, and begging to get her students (elementary level) to do “the right thing.”
All of the morals these youngsters have is “Obey” with “Why do you obey?” Because you get stuff if you do.
Her life is about micromanaging children. She can’t tell our kids to do anything, it is always an ask and often with no indication of what/why the ask. And her asks are always of the “Would you mind/like to do X?” and never “Will you do X for me?” She always provides the “out” in her requests.
I saw this mindset when I accidentally stumbled into Tumblr “lifter” culture. Example https://spoiledliftingbabe.tumblr.com/ this lot sees shoplifting as a sport and also catfishing and other scamming. This is clear evidence of social decline.
As for booby trapping boxes, the ultimate is the glitter bomb which included a cell phone to capture video and location before dispensing its shiny payload
Glitter bomb package: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo
Or paint — like the package equivalent of the “dye pack” bundle of cash banks give to bankrobbers.
One thing that would help a lot: restore the old rule that deadly force is authorized in defense against property crime.
Burner cell phone, black powder and the bomb can go off a long way away. I like the dye pack idea, probably the help the most
Sadly, this will mean that services like “Amazon Garage” will be more popular.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GW2LG3EFYMQ4ABQ9
Until that gets hacked, of course, at which point the hack will be sold on the dark web and hundreds of burglars will use it to steal garages empty.
better glitter bomb